Editorial

Published 10:15 pm, Saturday, March 23, 2013

Halfmoon farm survives

The legislative action that most impressed us last week didn't happen in Albany, but on a farm in Halfmoon.

Edmund Rucinski won't have to endure watching his family's nine-decade-old dairy farm auctioned off. For that, Mr. Rucinski — and anyone else committed to preserving what used to be a region full of farms — can thank Assemblyman Jim Tedisco.

Talk about constituent service: Mr. Tedisco, a Republican from Glenville, went to the mat to get Mr. Rucinski a six-month reprieve from tax foreclosure proceedings.

At some point, he'll have to make good on $32,000 in back taxes — no easy chore for a 67-year-old artist and musician living on a $652 a month Social Security check. But he doesn't want to sell the farm, either — not when it would almost certainly turn into one more housing development in a town that has some serious sprawl issues. So Mr. Rucinski's fight goes on. He could hardly have a better ally than Mr. Tedisco. NanoCollege goes global

There's nothing not to like about the collaboration on research and development between the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering and the government of Israel. Three billion reasons to hail a 10-figure deal that could mean 1,000 jobs here.

New York is setting the example for how states can reach beyond their borders, and their economic circumstances, by helping Israel advance its production of ever-smaller computer chips.

This isn't an endorsement, by the way, of the idea of the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering breaking off from UAlbany to become its own branch of the State University system. Think of how the NanoCollege's latest success could enrich not just it, but all of UAlbany.

Progress in war on blight

Another partnership worth watching: The Historic Albany Foundation suddenly isn't so much a critic of the city's efforts to save abandoned buildings from demolition as it is an ally. They've teamed up to recruit potential buyers for those properties. Smart idea.